Food_ A Cultural Culinary History ( PDFDrive )

The Birth of French Haute Cuisine

Lecture 20

Just as Italy passed the culinary leadership to Spain in the early 17th
century, France took the lead in the mid-17th century. Beyond the sheer
number of cookbooks that were produced, the French took the lead in
the ways that they innovated—either by creating new recipes and techniques
or by creating new fashions that were imitated everywhere. Everyone in
Europe imitated French fashion, architecture, language, diplomacy, and,
indisputably, cooking. This lecture will sample from cookbooks by four of
the giants responsible for the creation of early French haute cuisine.

France as a Culinary Model
 France is perhaps the model of how nation-states are constructed
in the early modern period. It becomes territorially intact. The
power of the king becomes greater than any of the nobles under
his jurisdiction. It has a national army paid for by taxes. France is,
therefore, one of the first countries to have a monopoly on violence.
Noble warriors have become courtiers, which probably explains
why manners appear in Europe.

 Like in Spain, there is a class of people in France with a lot of money
to spend, but there is also a middle class of wealthy merchants,
townsmen, and wealthy farmers providing vegetables, cheeses, or
wine to the cities. This class will be especially important in the 18th
century and in the French Revolution.

 The reason that France had a bourgeoisie while Spain didn’t has to
do with government policy. Spain spent a fortune fighting wars—
mostly over religion. They also thought that because they had silver
coming from the New World, they could spend as much as they
wanted and never run out. They were mistaken and eventually
ran out of cash, which was combined with a bad tax policy,
depopulation, rights granted to nobles, and incompetent kings who
were very poorly advised by greedy ministers.

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Lecture 20: The Birth of French Haute Cuisine  France did none of these. Wars were fought only for profit, and they
won those that they got involved in. They had a series of excellent
kings with brilliant ministers, and the state consciously sponsored
trade, industry, crafts, and agriculture. They fully realized that if the
wealth doesn’t get spread around, it’s like blood, and it clots. It gets
stuck in one organ when it needs to circulate to be useful to the
entire body politic.

 Why the efflorescence of France occurs only in the 17th century has
largely to do with a series of disastrous civil wars in the late 16th
century, mostly over religion. Thus, in the period when Italy and
Spain are flourishing artistically, the French court was stagnating.
There were practically no cookbooks written, and what we know of
French fashion and cookery is that it was still pretty much medieval.

 The only account we have of dining in the latter 16th century
describes the court of Henry III and is really bizarre. It’s a
satire called Description of the Isle of Hermaphrodites because
apparently Henry liked to wear makeup and dress like a woman.
Most interestingly, it says that everything was designed to shock
and surprise, and the effeminate courtiers actually used forks.

 All that changes when we get to the 17th century. First, the civil
wars come to an end with the reign of Henry IV, who converted
to Catholicism and declared religious toleration. He was succeeded
by Louis XIII, whose prime minister was Cardinal Richelieu, who
effectively increased the power of the crown at the expense of
the nobles.

 Louis XIV, the Sun King, ruled from 1643 to 1715. More than any
preceding ruler, Louis knew that to rule absolutely, he had to bring
nobles directly under his watchful eye, and he did this by building
the grandest palace Europe had ever seen—Versailles—and forcing
all the leading dignitaries, officials, churchmen, and nobles to live
there with him.

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 Versailles was not just a palace; it was an entire city staffed by
thousands of chefs, servants, suppliers, gardeners of the royal
orchards and vegetable beds, and an entire army. Practically every
daily occurrence at court was governed by a complex, formalized,
and public ritual, especially eating. This was a fantastic place for
the arts to flourish—especially cooking.

 This period is so important in the history of cuisine because it was
here that what we call modern French classical, or haute, cuisine
was born, although it wouldn’t be called haute cuisine until much
later. Cookbook authors defined what elegant cooking should be like
and how to do it. In codifying cuisine and making rules, it becomes
something totally different and something uniquely French.

La Varenne’s Cookbook
 The first cookbook to make the decisive break from culinary history
is Le Cuisinier François by François-Pierre de La Varenne. It was
published in 1651, with a translation into English only two years
later. The essence of this new cuisine lies in the fact that foods are
increasingly cooked in a way that accentuated and intensified the
flavor of the main ingredient rather than contrasting with it, as the
sugar, spices, and vinegar of older cookbooks had.

 Sauces were more often bound with a roux of flour and fat rather
than bread crumbs and sharp flavorings. Also, an increasing number
of sauces are based on butter. Herbs are used to add a subtle flavor
to a sauce. A consommé is clarified with egg whites. Equally
important is the procedural logic of La Varenne’s recipes. A few basic
preparations, such as a rich stock, can be kept on hand and reduced
(that is, boiled quickly to evaporate away some of the water) to make
a variety of sauces to accompany many different foods.

 Many of the older standbys, such as exotic birds, game, large fish,
and whale, disappear. Although it would take some time, spices
were increasingly banished to desserts, where we still find them
today. Fresh herbs and aromatics, such as onions and mushrooms,

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Lecture 20: The Birth of French Haute Cuisine Veal Epigramme (Braised Lamb)

(legs or knuckles of veal)

According to La Varenne’s cookbook, a whitening procedure,
blanching or soaking, was done in cold water to remove
any blood or impurities from the meat.

After they are well whitened in fresh water, flowre them and pass
them in the pan with melted Lard (drippings from bacon) or fresh
Seam (rendered pork fat). Then, break them and put them in a pot
well seasoned with Salt, Pepper, Cloves, and a bundle of Herbs.
Put an onion with it, a little Broth and a few Capers, then flowre
them with some paste, and smother them with the Pot lid; seeth them
leasurely thus covered for the space of three houres, after which you
shall uncover them, and shall reduce your Sauce untill all be the
better thereby. Put some Mushrums to it, if you have any, then serve.

often took their place. This new culinary aesthetic stressed subtlety,
simplicity of preparation, and a logical order to the foods served.

 Naturally, it took many years to totally break from ingrained culinary
habits. In La Varenne’s cookbook, there are as many medieval
recipes lingering as there are new ideas. However, the procedures
have changed. Salt and pepper (as well as cloves) are used to season,
along with aromatics. The meat is floured and seared, and the sauce
is reduced. The eventual impact of La Varenne’s new approach to
French cuisine would stretch across Europe.

Other French Cookbooks
 Le Cuisinier, by Pierre de Lune, appeared in 1656, shortly after La
Varenne’s cookbook. De Lune is credited with introducing several
further technical innovations: making regular use of the modern
bouquet garni—a bundle of herbs used for flavoring stocks and
stews—and offering one of the earliest sets of directions for making

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a roux with flour, which he called “fried flour.” De Lune was chef to
the duke of Rohan, so his recipes reflect the best that money could
buy, which now meant refinement and elegant procedures rather
than rare and exotic ingredients, variety, and abundance.

 Among late-17th-century French cookbooks, L’Art de Bien Traiter
of 1674 was the largest, most innovative, and important. Its author
was also a professional chef working for the noblest of patrons.
However, apart from his initials, L. S. R., we know practically
nothing about him. He is usually remembered today for his scathing
remarks about the vulgarity of earlier cookbooks.

 Far more interesting, though, are the ways that L. S. R. anticipates
developments in haute cuisine yet to come, including his detailed
interest in sensory perceptions—the way food looks and feels in the
mouth and the subtle perfumes evoked by perfect cooking. His aim
was delicacy, refinement, and discernment, and L. S. R. instructed
his readers exactly how to achieve the effects desired.

 The refinement of L. S. R.’s cookbook was achieved in large
measure by distancing himself from the culinary fashions of the
common rabble and especially from those of previous generations.

 The most popular cookbook of the latter 17th century was François
Massialot’s Le Cuisinier Roïal et Bourgeois of 1691. Massialot
probably worked as a freelance caterer for the royal household, and
for whoever could pay for his services, and his connections at court
and the descriptions of meals served there made his cookbook a
continual success. Its popularity probably also has a lot to do with
the broad audience it addressed.

 In terms of technique, several features of classical haute cuisine
also come into full light. There is extensive use of reduced stocks,
bound with a liaison of butter, cream, or eggs and garnished with
expensive ingredients like truffles or foie gras. The focus is on
concentrating flavors and reducing them to an essence, but one

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Lecture 20: The Birth of French Haute Cuisine Crayfish Soup

De Lune’s recipe for crayfish soup is a good example of
how chefs sought to intensify and concentrate the flavor
of the main ingredient and garnish it with other foods that
complement it as well as decorate the plate.

Wash the crayfish well, cook them in water with a bundle of herbs,
a bit of salt and butter. Then, draw out the tails and the legs, and
pound the shells, which you strain with the crayfish bouillon, and
place in a pot. Then, you put the tail and leg meat in a pan with a
bit of butter and fine herbs, well chopped, and you place them in
a pot or plate with the bouillon, the reddest you can strain. After,
simmer bread crusts with the bouillon, three or four finely chopped
mushrooms, arrange your crayfish and garnish the soup with roe
and mushrooms, lemon juice, and mushroom juice.

also finds humble ingredients and simple cuts of meat treated with
respect and cooked in ways that are straightforward.

 In fact, when planning an entire dinner, several fonds, or flavor
bases, would have been prepared ahead by a large kitchen staff.
The flavor bases could then be used in dozens of different sauces,
braises, or ragouts. This is one of the most important organizing
principles of French cuisine from this period to the present.

Suggested Reading

Arndt, Culinary Biographies.

Glanville, Elegant Eating.

Kaplan, Bakers of Paris.

Mennell, All Manners of Food.

Watts, Meat Matters.

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Wheaton, Savoring the Past.
Young, Apples of Gold.

Culinary Activity

The following recipe should be made with what are known as “baby”
artichokes—although they are not actually younger. They are merely small
flower buds and are much more tender. This is a good example of how
recipes have changed in late-17th-century France: The flavor of the main
ingredient is accentuated rather than hidden and stands largely on its own.
The use of alcohol in the batter is quite ingenious as well. It’s not merely
for flavor; it evaporates quickly, drawing out moisture and leaving the fried
batter very crisp. A large pot of oil is the most practical way to do this today,
but it is also incomparably delicious fried in rendered lard.

Fried Artichokes
(from L. S. R.’s L’Art de Bien Traiter of 1674, p. 86)
Choose the youngest, trim down the leaves and remove the choke; let them
soak some time so as to lose their bitterness. When you have drained them,
flour them or batter them in a mixture made of flour, fine salt, white wine or
milk, some egg yolks, all mixed and beaten together, and make this as thin
as you can. Dip your artichokes in, and when covered, fry them in lard or
butter or very hot oil, when they are properly cooked, so they have become
dry, golden and crispy, remove them so they can drain, and meanwhile fry
some parsley, which you have dried, the greenest possible, as the garnish,
and laden your artichokes, on which you sprinkle some fine salt and a little
good vinegar, however your guests desire.

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Lecture 21: Elizabethan England, Puritans, Country Food Elizabethan England, Puritans, Country Food

Lecture 21

In this lecture, you will learn that England has had a very rich and varied
culinary past—one in which there was a constant battle between native
and continental fashions and country and courtly cooking. This had a lot
to do with their religious situation, being Protestant but with both Puritan
and Catholic minorities, and their political development as a constitutional
monarchy with a powerful landed nobility and gentry. At times, courtly
and continental fashions dominated, and at others, simple country tastes
prevailed. Sometimes, narrow nationalism made them shun the strange and
foreign, and at other times, they went mad for imported oddities.

England in the 16th Century
 England in the 16th century was also one of the new powerful nation-
states with a strong solvent monarchy. It, too, had a Reformation,
but unlike the bloody civil wars in France, England under Henry
VIII broke away from Rome peacefully. The Reformation in
England took place in Parliament, which gave that body a measure
of power unlike the rest of Europe. The nature of shared power
made England’s culinary heritage unique because patronage and
power was not centered only at court.

 One perhaps unexpected outcome of the Reformation was the
dissolution of the monasteries, so many of their functions—such
as keeping bees for wax, growing grapes for sacramental wine,
and tending herb gardens—came to an end. Those monastic
properties were sold to private individuals, people with their own
independent power.

 We know something about the cuisine of Henry’s reign partly
through the accounts of banquets thrown by his principal minister,
Cardinal Wolsey. These lavish affairs were often set up in
“banquetting houses,” and the food was still thoroughly medieval,
involving huge wild animals served with spicy sauces.

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To Make a Dyschefull of Snowe

In addition to appearing in A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye,
the following recipe is found in Scappi’s cookbook and other
continental cookbooks and was apparently very popular
across Europe.

Take a pottell of swete thycke creame and the whytes of eyghte
egges, and beate them together wyth a spone, then putte them in
youre creame and a saucerfull of Rosewater, and a dyshe full of
Suger wyth all, then take a styke and make it cleane, and than cutte
it in the end foure square, and therwith beate all the aforesayde
thynges together, and ever as it ryseth take it of and put it into a
Collaunder, this done take one apple and set it in the myddes of
it, and a thycke bush of Rosemary, and set it in the myddes of the
platter, then cast your snowe uppon the Rosemarye and fyll your
platter therwith. and yf you have wafers caste some in wyth all and
thus seve them forthe.

 There are a few cookbooks from this period. As early as 1500, a
small anonymous book titled This Is the Boke of Cokery appeared,
and in 1508, a carving manual called Here Begynneth the Boke of
Kervynge appeared. Both are still pretty much medieval.

 About 1545, at the end of Henry’s reign, there appeared another
anonymous cookbook: A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye, which
begins to depart from earlier medieval texts, particularly in the
appearance of fruit tarts and other pies with crusts that were meant
to be eaten. There is also evidence of continental influence.

 When Henry died in 1547 and his young and sickly son Edward
took the throne, his advisors initiated a full and thorough Protestant
reform throughout the country. Theologically, England joined the
Swiss (Calvinist) tradition. In addition, a Puritanical spirit was
unleashed, one that looked with derision upon the supposedly

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Lecture 21: Elizabethan England, Puritans, Country Food sacred festivals that dotted the Christian calendar and took a harsh
attitude toward food and pleasures of the body.

 When young Edward died, the nation without hesitation proclaimed
Mary Queen of England—even though she was Catholic. England
reverted to full obedience to the Pope and the Catholic Church
for several years, and then they switched just as quickly back to
Protestantism under Elizabeth.

 The importance of this is that England maintained both Catholic
and Puritan minorities—the former attracted to the continent
aesthetically, and the latter tending toward simple, native tastes.
There are many other factors involved, but this makes England
sort of schizophrenic gastronomically. England was nonetheless
dazzling in the reign of Elizabeth.

 In the 1580s and 1590s, a spate of cookbooks was published. The
first of these was The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchen,
which appeared in 1588. It is addressed to a woman cooking for
or managing a household, presumably a wealthy one located in the
country because many of the recipes call for wild game.

 The next important cookbook produced in England first appeared
in 1596: Thomas Dawson’s The Good Huswifes Jewell. Like The
Good Huswifes Handmaide, it reflects new ideas in cookery. It
contains, for example, the first recipe for sweet potatoes. It also
includes directions for making various marzipan figures. Although
many of the recipes call for boiling ingredients, they also show a
fairly simple and direct way of dealing with them.

England in the Early 17th Century
 Cookery in the early 17th century did not differ that much from that
of the previous century. There was a new king on the throne—the
Scotsman James I, who was not quite as popular as Elizabeth.

 Gervase Markham was one of the most prolific author/compilers of
this generation, writing about a variety of topics that would appeal

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to the owner or steward and housekeeper of a typical country house.
With titles covering agriculture, husbandry, medicine for people
and animals, and cooking, he provided readers, probably landed
gentry, with practically everything they would need to know.

 The English Housewife of 1615 (which then appeared in expanded
editions for the next two decades) is his foray into cookery, but it
also contains sections on distillation, brewing beer, baking bread,
making cloth, curing ailments, and even the virtues requisite for
the ideal housewife. It is clear from some of his recipes that the
household was wealthy enough to afford fashionable and exotic
Mediterranean ingredients worthy of royal tables.

 When James I died, his son Charles I inherited the throne.
Immediately, people began to notice changes at court. There
was a new style of clothes and architecture, modeled closely on
continental fashions, which seemed foreign to Englishmen. After a
series of political blunders, a civil war erupted that succeeded not
only in removing Charles’s head and abolishing the monarchy, but
also in instituting a godly republic led by Oliver Cromwell and a
host of puritanically minded parliamentarians.

 The significance of this episode for the history of food is that the
pleasures of the palate became suspect. All sensory indulgence
was deemed sinful. The theaters were closed, and the village
festivals were banned. Anything redolent of paganism was purified,
following strict biblical authority.

 Without a royal court, one might think the arts of the table
languished; in fact, they didn’t, and Cromwell kept a very nice wine
cellar. However, most of the great chefs seem to have just gone into
hiding because a magnificent court reemerged as if overnight with
the restoration of Charles II in 1660 as king.

 For the rest of the 17th century, the full splendor of the royal court
returned, but the power of parliament also remained strong, leaving
England with a constitutional monarchy. England, in contrast to

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Lecture 21: Elizabethan England, Puritans, Country Food the continent, developed its dining traditions closely tied to the
stately manor and its produce. Cookbooks reflect this difference;
the ingredients and procedures are simpler, and the dishes tend to
be more traditional.

 England was still profoundly influenced by dining customs
abroad, but the constant pull between native and foreign, simple
and complex, royal and bourgeois would continue to give English
cookery two different faces. The fact that many cookbooks address
a middle-class audience also makes them quite different from other
European works.

England in the Late 17th Century
 The first crop of cookbooks published after the Restoration was
thoroughly courtly. The first of these, The Accomplisht Cook by
Robert May, is one of the longest and most detailed of 17th-century

To Make a Potato Pie

From William Rabisha’s The Whole Body of Cookery
Dissected of 1661, the following recipe is a good example of
how new ingredients were appropriated in traditional recipes
and garnished with a strange mixture of local and exotic items. The
effect is very much Baroque.

Boyl your Spanish Potatoes (not overmuch) cut them forth in
slices as thick as your thumb, season them with Nutmeg, Cinamon,
Ginger, and Sugar; your Coffin being ready, put them in, over the
bottom; add to them the Marrow of about three Marrow-bones,
seasoned as aforesaid, a handful of stoned Raisons of the Sun, some
quartered Dates, Orangado, Cittern (citron), with Ringo-roots
sliced, put butter over it, and bake them: let their lear be a little
Vinegar, Sack and Sugar, beaten up with the yolk of an Egg, and
a little drawn butter; when your pie is enough, pour it in, shake it
together, scrape on Sugar, garnish it, and serve it up.

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cookbooks. May was a professional cook, working for several
Catholic noble households. The work was first published in 1660
immediately after the king returned.

 May’s cooking procedures and ingredients are traditionally English,
but they also reflect the latest continental fashions and Baroque
taste. Like his patrons, he looked to Catholic Europe for aesthetic
inspiration, but he still remained thoroughly English. This can be
seen throughout his recipes.

England in the 18th Century
 In contrast to the Baroque cooking of late-17th-century England,
there was an entirely different side of English cooking that was
based on the country house with cookbooks addressed to women.
Authors of these types of cookbooks included Hannah Woolley, E.
Smith Twiddy, and Hannah Glasse.

 There are dozens of this type of cookbook in the 18th century, all
of which stole from each other. These country estate cookbooks
support the notion that there are two very different sides to English
cookery, and one might argue down to the present that there is
still the relatively simple, local, and traditional versus the exotic,
continental, and innovative.

 It is also no surprise that these books appealed to the American
colonists as well, especially those who had their own country
estates. E. Smith Twiddy’s cookbook was the first cookbook
published in the colonies, in Williamsburg.

Suggested Reading

Bennet, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters.

Dawson, The Good Huswifes Jewell.

Glasse, Art of Cookery.

The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchen.

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Lecture 21: Elizabethan England, Puritans, Country Food Hess, Martha Washington’s Book of Cookery.

Lehmann, British Housewife.

Markham, English Housewife.

May, The Compleat Cook.

Mennell, All Manners of Food.

Sim, Food and Feast.

Smith, Compleat Housewife.

Thirsk, Food in Early Modern England.

Culinary Activity

Chicken pot pie is a direct descendant of the following recipe, but notice how
much the contents have changed. Also consider how, though it is directed
toward housewives (meaning relatively small households), it still contains
a very large presentation dish. Could you infer from this that housewives
were expected on occasion to entertain large numbers of guests? Or is this
perhaps merely aspirational—much like a person today reading a recipe or
entertaining instructions or even watching it on television but never actually
intending to cook the meal? The historian can only guess, but it is an enticing
pie nonetheless, and it can certainly be made on a smaller scale for your
friends or family, as the opening lines suggest. Don’t be tempted to skimp
on the sugar; it is delectable. This is before sugar was banished from savory
dishes, and it also reflects the serious Elizabethan sweet tooth.

To Make a Chickin Pye
(from Good Hous-wives Treasurie, 1588)
If you will make one so bigge, take nine or ten Chickins of a moneth olde,
trusse them round and breake their bones, take to season them withall a
quarter of cloves and Mace, a litte Pepper and Salte, as much as you think
will season your Pye two or three Orenge peeles small shread, take the
marow of a shorte marow bone cleave it long waies and take out the marowe
as whole as you can, then cut it in foure or five peeces and put it in your pie
take halfe a pounde of Currans, a food hand full of Prunes, eight Dates,
fower cut in halfe and fower shred, a pounde of Suger with that in your

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crust and all, half a dossen spoonefuls of Rosewater, so heate your Oven
reasonablye, and let it stand in two howers and a halfe or three howers, a
quarter of an hower before you draw it take three yolkes of egges, fower
or five spoonefulles of Rosewater, beat them together and let them boyle a
waume stir it still till you take it off, when it is somewhat coole put in three
or foure spoon full of Vergis and a little suger, and put it into your pye quish
your cover and so serve it in.

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Lecture 22: Dutch Treat—Coffee, Tea, Sugar, Tobacco Dutch Treat—Coffee, Tea, Sugar, Tobacco

Lecture 22

In this lecture, you will learn about the economy, agriculture, and
colonization in the 17th and 18th centuries—the age of mercantilism—
with a focus on the few foods that become major export items in global
trade. These foods are almost always expensive luxury items to start with, but
are eventually grown on a much larger scale and are consumed by everyone
across Europe, rich and poor alike. The general pattern that will emerge is
that colonies grow the crops either through the plantation system that uses
slave labor or by exploiting native labor and forcing them to produce the
crop for export by the imperial power.

Mercantilism
 A few items—sugar, coffee, tea, tobacco, and spices—completely
change the focus of the global economy. What is ironic is that they
are all entirely superfluous. They have no nutritional value and,
at best, supply a jolt of sweetness, caffeine, nicotine, or flavor to
the consumer.

 The sad part is that consumers begin to buy these luxury items
instead of nutritious food, and people are being sold into slavery or
become pawns of the imperial trading companies, just so Europeans
can have these goods.

 The Portuguese and Spanish were the first in the colonization
business, but in this era, they are muscled out by the new economic
powerhouses: England, the Netherlands, and France. In many cases,
it is not the countries themselves but powerful trading companies
like the Dutch East India Company that form these colonies
solely for profit, and they are usually granted monopolies by their
governments, so they become perversely wealthy.

 The idea of a monopoly offends the capitalist free market mind,
but economic theories of the day, known as mercantilism, were

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operating with some very different assumptions: 17th- and 18th-
century governments very strictly controlled their national
economies and heavily restricted imports by putting heavy duties
on them.

 Mercantilist states also fix wages, fix prices, and encourage exports—
especially of locally manufactured goods. The idea is that this will
bring into the country money, which rulers can tax so that they can
build up their treasuries and wage war. They also assume that there is
a fixed volume of trade in the world, so the only way to gain wealth is
to muscle in on the trade of another nation. Hence, there was a whole
series of mercantilist wars over trade routes and colonies.

The Netherlands
 The Dutch—or the Dutch East India Company, which governs these
colonies—are the most successful mercantilist country. Realizing
that the Portuguese have had a monopoly on the spice trade for the
past century, the Dutch declare war and, one by one, steal nearly
every Portuguese colony or trading post in Asia. They burned
plantations on all but a few of their islands and strictly limited
production to keep prices high.

 Although this technically was not slavery because they didn’t buy
and sell the local inhabitants, for all practical purposes, it was
because they forced the native peoples to work on their plantations.
In most cases, people who had been growing food for themselves—
called subsistence agriculture—were now producing luxury goods
for export, being paid money, and then having to buy food from the
Dutch suppliers, which creates a situation of total dependency.

 The Dutch also made inroads into the China trade, which is in
tea, silk, and porcelain—all luxury items. They also got exclusive
rights to trade with Japan from an enclosed island near the city
of Nagasaki. That situation remained in place until the mid-19th
century and explains why Japan, longer than any other Asian nation,
remained uninfluenced by the West.

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Lecture 22: Dutch Treat—Coffee, Tea, Sugar, Tobacco  For the time being, the Dutch colonies made the Dutch the
wealthiest nation on Earth. What also makes them unique is that
they don’t have a king or powerful nobility. When they fought to
free themselves from Spanish rule in the 16th century, they were
determined not to have a king, so they set up a republic, which
remained until the 19th century. As a result, there is a lot of wealth
that is spread across a large mercantile class, and they spend it.

 These people were Calvinists, so they were supposed to be strict,
frugal, and sober and not spend a lot of money on finery and food.
Therefore, they invest much of their great wealth, but they also
spend money on nice but relatively somber things.

 Dutch cooking tends to be very simple. They eat at a lot of fish,
beer, bread, butter, and cheese. There is one important Dutch
cookbook of this period called De Verstandige Kock (“The Sensible
Cook”). The cooking is really very plain, but there are a couple of
things they specialized in that came into American cooking via the
Dutch: pancakes, waffles, and cookies (all Dutch words). They’re
also crazy about pies.

England and France
 The next great mercantile power was England. Just like the
Netherlands, England tried to muscle in on world trade. They also
had their own East and West India companies, monopolies granted
specifically to compete with the Dutch. Like the Dutch, they began
their involvement in world trade by preying on Spanish shipping
during the war with Spain in the late 16th century.

 The very first efforts to colonize the New World were in what is
now Virginia in the 1580s, and they were disastrous. The English
really only get going with colonization in the early 17th century;
they set up Jamestown in 1607. There’s a mad scramble to set up
colonies that would provide raw materials or foods to the mother
country and also provide markets for manufactured goods made
back in Europe.

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 The Southern colonies end up focusing on tobacco, cotton, rice
in the Carolinas. To work these huge plantations, they eventually
begin importing African slaves. Tobacco becomes all the rage in
Europe from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and Virginia has a
virtual monopoly on the product for centuries.

 Just as important are the British possessions in the Caribbean. In the
1650s, they steal Jamaica from the Spanish. The native population,
having been completely wiped out by European diseases, is
replaced with African slaves, who are put to work on English sugar
plantations. Sugar—as well as a by-product of the manufacturing
process, rum—now becomes a major article of trade for the English.
Down the road, they end up with many more possessions, including
Barbados, the Virgin Islands, and Bermuda.

 There’s also the ragtag colony of New England, which in the 1630s
begins to fill up with all sorts of bizarre religious exiles. In the 17th
century, these colonies are pretty much left to themselves; they have
their own governments, issue their own money, and tax their own
citizens. They’re cut off from England politically, but economically,
they’re still closely tied. It’s only when the British try to draw them
more closely into the empire that there’s trouble.

 The French get some of their own Caribbean colonies, including
Martinique and a few others, but they also obtain Quebec and a huge
swathe of North America that stretches down the Mississippi river
all the way to Louisiana (named after Louis XIV). Economically,
this is quite different from many of the other colonies because it is
mostly fur trappers that settle here.

Colonial Products
 Sugar started out being an exclusive luxury item that was consumed
only by the wealthiest of people, and even after it began to be
produced in the New World, there were still elite people using it
for sugar sculptures and in their foods. Around the mid-17th century,
that all begins to change. Once the Spanish-Portuguese monopoly
was broken, there were British and Dutch manufacturers importing

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their own sugar, and they developed a new manufacturing process
that replaced the old Mediterranean press.
 Because sugar was arriving in Europe in vast quantities, the price
plummets. However, that doesn’t matter in the least because it is
being marketed to a new consumer. It is now fobbed off on ordinary
people, and the demand for sugar becomes so great that the industry
just grows and grows. Europeans—and North Americans, of
course—become sugar addicts.
 There are other colonial products that are even more convincingly
addictive. Tobacco is not just something that might make you fat or
give you cavities—it kills you. There were both social and medical
warnings against smoking, but business, trade, and wealth overrode
them, just as they often do today.

Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages in the world.
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Lecture 22: Dutch Treat—Coffee, Tea, Sugar, Tobacco
© iStockphoto/Thinkstock.

 There were a few other colonial monoculture crops. Chocolate,
which was drunk by the Aztecs and taken up enthusiastically by the
Spanish nobles, was the perfect drink for lazy courtiers whose ideal
in life was not to be great businessmen, but to inherit wealth, live
off rents, and never lift a finger. Chocolate relaxes you and makes
you fat, so it is maybe not a surprise that it became the drink of
choice in Spain.

 However, in Protestant Northern Europe, where making money is
the name of the game, you have to be alert, wired, and able to stay
awake for long hours to watch after your investments. It’s maybe
not surprising that coffee dominates there. In the 17th century,
coffeehouses opened across Europe, especially in London. These
were places where people went to socialize, hash out business
deals, and draw up contracts.

 Why tea replaced coffee in England is just a matter of politics. The
English had been buying tea in China and wanted to protect the
trade of the East India Company, so they lowered the tariff on tea to
practically nothing and raised it on coffee. The English didn’t have
coffee plantations, so they promoted tea. Later, the British figured
out that they could grow tea in India, which then became the major
supplier to the empire of fermented black teas.

Suggested Reading

Cowan, Social Life of Coffee.
Gold, Danish Cookbooks.
Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures.
Pendergast, Uncommon Grounds.
Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise.

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Lecture 22: Dutch Treat—Coffee, Tea, Sugar, Tobacco Culinary Activity
Though Dutch cooking in the 17th century was fairly simple, the following
dish includes expensive imported spices. Its direct descendant, introduced
into what was then the colony of New Amsterdam, we know now as
doughnuts.
Verstandige Cok Olie-koecken
(adapted from The Sensible Cook, ed. Peter Rose, p. 78)
Take six cups of flour, and add two cups of raisins that have been soaked in
warm water. Add six peeled, cored, and chopped apples; two cups of chopped
almonds; and a teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Add
a small bowl of melted butter and a packet of instant yeast. Add enough milk
to make a very thick batter, and let it rise for about an hour. Then, heat a pot
of oil (to about 360 to 375 degrees), and with two spoons, drop balls of the
batter into the oil. Turn over when browned on one side, and remove when
puffy and golden brown. Let cool on a rack. Sprinkle with powdered sugar
if you like. The original recipe does not include sugar in the batter, but you
may use some—up to a cup, depending on your preference.

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African and Aboriginal Cuisines

Lecture 23

Thus far, you have been learning about large-scale global forces that
have rich, sophisticated cuisines based on ingredients from all over
the world. However, a cuisine does not have to be powerful and
wealthy to be sophisticated and interesting in its own right. To try to balance
the European narrative, this lecture will touch on a few other indigenous
traditions—sub-Saharan Africa and aboriginal Australia—just before the
point when they start to succumb to global forces. In this lecture, you will
be presented with some of the basic ingredients and techniques that are
prevalent through much of the continent of Africa.

African Cuisine
 At the heart of most African cuisines is a starchy porridge that can
be made of nearly any grain, tuber, or starchy fruit. Typically, it is
pounded, cooked in a common pot, and eaten with the hands; it is
rolled into little balls and used as a vehicle for other foods. In west
Africa, it is called fufu.

 Many of the ingredients used to make the starch bases were
introduced since the globalization of the 16th century. African
cuisine very easily adapts to new ingredients out of practical
necessity, but the same basic structure of the meal and way of eating
remains intact—at least up until recently.

 Throughout history, Africa gave the world watermelons (and
probably other melons as well), beans, okra, cola nuts, tamarind,
palms for palm oil, and, perhaps the most important, finger millet
and sorghum, which were domesticated in Africa. They also
introduced New World species like chilies, tomatoes, and peanuts.

 Practically all of these ingredients—vegetables, meats, beans,
and flavorings—go into a soupy stew that is eaten with the starch
base. Cooking technology doesn’t get much beyond a stewpot

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Lecture 23: African and Aboriginal Cuisines placed over a fire or on a rack for grilling. Cooking usually takes
place outside.

 Much of the continent still lives at the subsistence level; people
still grow most of the food they consume, or it is bought and sold
at a local level. Famines are still frequent there, and even where
there’s not true famine, malnutrition is a very serious problem—
not to mention all sorts of nasty diseases, including elephantiasis,
shistosomiasis, and AIDS.

 Africa is among the poorest places on Earth, but the simplicity of
the cuisine doesn’t just have to do with poverty. In Africa, there
has always traditionally been only one class. Everyone makes a
living the same way, and the few individuals who may stick out
either because they’re rulers, tribal elders, or medicine men don’t
constitute a separate class. The result is that everyone eats the same
foods, and eating habits are very slow to change.

 Another important factor in African cuisine is that many people
remained in a hunting-and-gathering economy far longer than in
most places. They made the transition to agriculture very slowly,
and in most places, it wasn’t complete until modern times. From
about 9,000 years ago, most Africans were seminomadic and
practiced a combination of hunting, gathering, and agriculture.

Indigenous Crops
 Of the crops that are indigenous to Africa, the most important is the
yam. The flesh of a yam is pure white and more like a turnip than
a soft sweet potato. Yams are useful because you can plant them,
forget about them, and come back months later. Africans ate yams
by cooking them until soft and mashing them into a starchy mass to
make fufu, which forms the bulk of the diet.

 Another native crop is sorghum, which looks a lot like a small
cornstalk, but the seeds grow on the top in a big, bushy head. The
seeds are tiny but very nutritious; they contain more calories by
weight than corn and have less fat and more protein. Another food

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© iStockphoto/Thinkstock.

Sorghum is grown as one of Africa’s major cereal grains.

Africa gave the rest of the world is millet, which is used just like
yam and sorghum—cooked into a solid mush that you can pick up
with your fingers.

 The black-eyed pea is another African crop, and it was introduced to
Europe in classical times. It was the standard bean there before New
World varieties. All of these legumes and vegetables along with
meat are thrown into a stew—whatever you have at hand, basically,
cooked one way. As a cooking medium, Africa also has palm oil,
red and white. It’s used in stews (or nowadays to deep-fry). There’s
also palm butter. Palm trees can be tapped and apparently yield a
few gallons of juice in a day.

 In terms of seasonings, melegueta pepper comes from the west
coast of Africa. Africans also made salt from wood ashes.
Tamarinds, now spread throughout South America and Asia, are
native to Africa. Kola nuts were typically sliced into thin wedges

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Lecture 23: African and Aboriginal Cuisines and chewed for hours. Kola nuts are supposedly quite bitter, but
they have an enormous amount of caffeine.

 There aren’t many African native domesticated animals, except for
guinea fowl, which were common everywhere in the Old World
until they were replaced by turkey.

Changes in African Cuisine
 African food doesn’t really change; it’s really only a matter of
new ingredients being used the same way. The most important
connection for east Africa was with the Middle East and,
eventually, with Persia at the time that Islam was introduced. The
most important food they introduced was rice, which joined yams
as a major staple. However, rice can only be grown in places with
enough water, so it didn’t replace millet and sorghum.

 Limes and other citrus fruits were also introduced from Asia. They
are still very important and are grown all over the place. Coconuts,
tropical fruits, ginger, and typical Middle Eastern spices and
flavorings, like cumin and garlic, were also introduced. All of these
products were introduced basically because east Africa was now
linked up with the trade routes traveling across the Indian Ocean,
linking the Middle East to India and East Asia.

 The next major transformation came via the Portuguese, who
started exporting slaves from Africa to the New World. They also
brought New World foods to Africa. Some of these, including corn,
were immediately adopted. Corn has the advantage of being safe
from birds, unlike millet and sorghum. Even more important is
cassava, which they ground, fermented, and roasted, making gari
flour—which is still a major staple throughout Africa. Yams were
not entirely displaced, but they were to a large extent.

 There are also important flavorings introduced from America.
The most typical is peanuts, which are ground up into a kind of
peanut butter and thrown into stews. The same is true of tomatoes.
It might seem an odd combination, but tomatoes and peanuts in a

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soup or stew is one of the most typical flavor combinations, along
with chilis.

 There really aren’t any African recipes—just a few basic techniques
used for a handful of ingredients. There’s a very interesting account
of African cooking written by a slave named Olauda Equiano in the
West Indies in the 18th century. The food he described is very simple:
goat meat or poultry, pepper, plantains, yams, beans, and corn.

 Equiano also mentions some interesting customs, including the
fact that the head of the household eats alone, and the wives and
slaves eat afterward. It is still customary for men and women to
eat separately. He also mentions that a bit of stew is always poured
on the ground to feed the ancestors. Equiano also stresses the
importance of hand washing.

 In general, Africans don’t eat off individual plates; instead, there’s
a common bowl (or sets of bowls), and everyone takes from it with
their hands. Oddly, they don’t usually drink during a meal, but there
is alcohol, including various kinds of beer fermented from grains
and fruits.

 Africans don’t have many food avoidances. Apparently, they once
would not eat primates, but there’s a huge trade in smoked monkeys
now. In fact, several species are threatened with extinction. Many
African peoples don’t eat eggs, and in Ethiopia and southward, fish
are taboo.

Aboriginal Australia
 Aboriginal Australia provides an interesting point of contrast
with other cultures, primarily because its encounter with the West
happens so late and so tumultuously, and such an entirely different
cuisine comes with a completely transplanted culture that the two
really don’t mix. That is, the English cuisine that arrives in the 19th
century does not adopt local plants and animals, and the indigenous
foodways are maintained—at least for a while—though they’re
almost completely abandoned today.

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Lecture 23: African and Aboriginal Cuisines  Before that point of contact, aboriginal cuisine relied exclusively on
indigenous plants and animals. There are a wide variety of tubers,
vegetables like bush tomatoes and finger limes, wattle seeds, fruits
like the quandong, bunya nuts, and macadamia nuts. Witchetty
grubs and honey ants, fish and eels in streams, kangaroos and
wallabies, emus, bandicoots, bush-tailed possum, goanna (lizards),
and snakes could all be hunted with spears or a boomerang.

 Cooking methods are very simple. Cooking involves making a fire
and throwing in the meat or digging a hole, putting leaves over hot
coals, and wrapping foods in leaves or bark so they don’t burn.
Alternatively, a wooden trough can be filled with water, and hot
rocks can be thrown in to cook food. Resourcefulness is essential
because they didn’t have pottery or meat implements.

 Practically none of Australian indigenous food is eaten anywhere,
even in Australia. Perhaps even more amazing is that an entire
cuisine could be transplanted in its entirety from England. That’s
not to say that Australian cooking hasn’t also been influenced by
Asian cooking or the immigration of Greeks, Syrians, Germans,
and other groups. Of course, there are many foods that have been
invented in the past two centuries.

Suggested Reading

Carney, In the Shadow of Slavery.

Harris, High on the Hog.

Opie, Hogs and Hominy.

Culinary Activity

Matooke and Luwombo
These two dishes are common in Uganda and go together so beautifully
that it is well worth trying. Matooke is simply a small starchy banana
that is steamed and mashed. You can substitute plantains, but a closer
approximation can be found in African or even Southeast Asian groceries.

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For the luwombo, you will need to find banana leaves, which are sold frozen
in Asian groceries. They serve as the steaming container as well as the plate.
You can make this with any kind of meat, but goat is the richest. Cut up the
goat meat into large chunks, and season with salt and pepper. Crush a few
handfuls of peanuts into a fine powder, and toss with the meat. Sprinkle with
some chili flakes, some chopped onion, grated ginger, and a few chopped
tomatoes. Place two or three banana leaves facing different directions down
on the table, and put in a pile of the meat on top and then fold in the leaves
to enclose. Tie securely with string. Make several bundles, one for each
person. Then, make a fire, and surround with three bricks. Place a pot on
the bricks over the fire, add a little water, and put in the banana leaf bundles.
The wood fire and smoke really does make a difference to the flavor. Add
water as needed, making sure the bundles don’t burn. Steam for at least two
hours. Cut open the bundles from the top, folding down the leaves to create
a kind of plate, and eat directly from the leaf with some matooke on the side.
Naturally, you use your fingers, of the right hand only.

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Lecture 24: Edo, Japan—Samurai Dining and Zen Aesthetics Edo, Japan—Samurai Dining and Zen Aesthetics

Lecture 24

Japan’s cuisine development does not have to do with exotic ingredients,
complicated procedures, or fantastically impossible presentations of
food. Instead, it is a refinement based on simplicity, austere aesthetic
presentation, freshness of ingredients, and minimal processing. In this
lecture, which focuses on traditional Japan in the Edo era, you will learn
about a cuisine that developed entirely in its own unique direction, cut off
from the process of globalization—not because of geographical isolation
but, rather, as a result of an intentional shutting out of the West.

Japanese Cuisine
 Many of Japan’s cultural and culinary traditions come from China
and Korea. Probably the most important of them is rice, which only
arrived in Japan at the end of the Neolithic period, about 2,400 years
ago, with immigrants from the mainland. Asiatic peoples came from
the continent with rice and metal tools, and the population suddenly
rose—just like elsewhere in Asia.

 The variety of rice introduced was short-grained, sticky, and
relatively sweet. To this day, the Japanese don’t eat long-grain rice.
Much of their cuisine is based on the tactile quality of the rice they
use and the fact that it sticks together and that you can pick it up
with a chopstick. It is nearly impossible to eat long-grain loose rice
with chopsticks.

 Their respect and reverence for rice is so great that it is never
flavored or seasoned with spices or sauces. It is always pure white
and boiled. Other foods can go on top of it, but the rice should be
pure and bland to start with.

 One of the only preparations that alters rice dramatically is mochi,
which is little rice cakes made by pounding steamed glutinous
rice. Neither mochi nor sake are thought of as a corruption of

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rice, but raising it to a finer and more
spiritual level. Mochi is consumed
during the New Year period while
sake plays a very important role in
religious festivals.

 Rice is the indisputable central staple © iStockphoto/Thinkstock.
of Japan. Rice is even made into
noodles, using a technology that Mochi is a Japanese rice
was introduced from China in the 8th cake that is pounded into a
century. Only later were noodles made paste and then shaped.
from flour introduced, called udon,
which were popular in western Japan.
Ramen are a more recent invention.
Starch, usually rice or noodles, form
the substructure of Japanese cuisine.

 In its long history, Japan has had many prohibitions on meat eating.
The first, from 675, prohibited eating cattle, horses, dogs, monkeys,
and chickens. The Japanese seem to have taken the Buddhist
prohibition against killing more seriously than any other Buddhist
peoples, especially in the 8th and 9th centuries, when eating any and
all mammals was forbidden. Occasionally, some people hunted
birds or game, but as a rule, animals were not raised for meat as
elsewhere in the world.

 The Japanese ate lots of fish. Only strict Buddhist monks avoided
fish. Japan is surrounded by water, so the ideal was fish as fresh as
could be found. Raw fish in thin slices (namasu) has always been
eaten in Japan, but the practice of dipping sashimi in soy sauce
with wasabi only became popular in the 17th century. Soy sauce
sometimes masks the pure flavors, especially of more delicate fish.

 Sushi, in its original form (nare-zushi), was very different from
what it is today. It started out as a way to preserve fish for several
years. A bite-sized piece would be salted and rolled in rice flavored
with vinegar and then left to cure. After it was preserved, the

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Lecture 24: Edo, Japan—Samurai Dining and Zen Aesthetics soured, decomposed rice would be wiped off, and the fish could be
eaten. In the 18th century, the hand-rolled nigirizushi was invented
and served at restaurants, basically as a kind of fast food.

 In terms of vegetables, there are several different kinds of seaweed
that are eaten either as a side dish (hijiki) or as an ingredient in
dashi, which is basically a stock central to Japanese cooking. It’s
made with dried bonito shavings and kombu, which is a giant sea
kelp, and water. Seaweed is also used as a condiment. Daikon
radish is another popular vegetable in Japanese cuisine.

 Soybeans are also central to Japanese cuisine. They are eaten lightly
boiled and cold (edamame); they are also made into tofu, which is
of great use to Buddhist monks. Soy is also made into miso paste,
which is a fermented and storable seasoning for boiled dishes and
soup. There are dozens of different types of miso, and the Japanese
appreciate the subtle differences the way Europeans obsess
over wine.

 Shoyu, or soy sauce, is a relative newcomer to Japan. In the 16th
century, it began to be made on a commercial level. Today, soy
sauce is the most important seasoning. Another basic flavoring is
mirin, and all sorts of sauces are made with soy, vinegar, or citrus
(ponzu). Other important vegetables are gourds, which are dried
and cut into long strips, and mushrooms. Shiitake mushrooms are a
unique Japanese cultivar.

Japanese Table Manners
 The Japanese ate with their fingers before the 7th century. From
China, along with Buddhism, the chopstick was introduced. Food
is typically cut into mouth-sized bits, or sometimes larger; the
Japanese like to get an entire mouthful at a time. For some strange
reason, spoons did not catch on, and the Japanese usually sipped
directly from the bowl, which forces you to concentrate on the
contents. It’s a much more focused activity than slurping liquid off
of a spoon.

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 Every individual has his or her own set of chopsticks, and separate
ones are used for serving. The same focus on manners and etiquette
developed here at roughly the same time, if not earlier, than it
did in the West, but obviously with very different results. There
is a similar avoidance of polluting common serving dishes with
one’s saliva, having to do with ideas of pollution and cleanliness
in Shintoism.

 The other unique feature is that the Japanese used no chairs.
They sat directly on a tatami mat or on the wooden floor, and like
drinking out of a bowl, it forces the person to do everything slowly
and more methodically. They usually bring the bowl close to their
lips and move the food with the chopsticks. Food is set on little
wooden tables, and typically everything is brought out at once.

 Very formalized and ritualized manners developed in the 16th and
17th centuries among the samurai class, and for probably the very
same reasons, they developed among nobles in the West—at exactly
the same time. This type of manners prevents misunderstandings
and possible violent outbursts. Everyone is armed, but at the table,
there’s a ritualized truce.

 Probably the most ritualized ceremony involves taking tea (cha
dou). Tea itself came with Buddhists from China, but for some
reason, it fell from favor and became popular again in the Middle
Ages. The ceremony was developed in the 16th century and was
meant to reflect Zen philosophy in that it sought to create an entire
aesthetic experience of art, architecture, gardening, crafts, and food.
There is a formal feast that goes with the ceremony, called kaiseki-
ryori, with very strict order of courses.

The Presentation of Food
 Although they ruled politically, the mercantile class is economically
the important class in this period. These people had money, ate
out often, and lived in cities, such as Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto.
They invented Japanese haute cuisine, which is the basis of most
traditional Japanese cooking today. It is these restaurants in the Edo

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Lecture 24: Edo, Japan—Samurai Dining and Zen Aesthetics period that placed so much emphasis on presentation and on the
philosophy that stresses the natural, unaffected, and haphazard.

 Japanese cuisine is also probably the cuisine that pays more
attention to the size, shape, and color of the bowls food is served on.
In Japanese cuisine, the bowls or serving containers are chosen very
carefully to heighten the tactile and sensory quality of the food, and
it’s perfectly fine for them to be different shapes and sizes—unlike
in Western culture. In addition, handmade objects are revered.

 Food is meticulously arranged on a plate to heighten attention to
the different senses. Visual appeal is perhaps more important than
in any other cuisine. There is careful attention to the color, but also
to the shape of the food and how it sits on the plate. There is careful
attention to the overall design, but also to the texture of the food in
your mouth and to the aroma as it enters your nostrils.

 Unlike Western cuisines—or even other Asian ones—the Japanese
seem to appreciate single ingredients on their own rather than
complex combinations of flavor and texture. There is something
very minimalistic about this mindset, which is why this cooking
(and art, for that matter) has been appealing to Westerners.

 Cooking techniques are also very simple. If cooked at all, food is
cooked for a precise length of time and usually over a stove top.
There’s very little baking or roasting. In addition, food is cut in
small pieces so that it cooks quicker and more evenly and so that
you never need a sharp object at the table. Almost all foods are
either fried, grilled, or steamed.

 Bento boxes are the quintessential Japanese food. It’s a whole
elegant, miniature lunch in a box. Rice is the core but the box also
contains grilled fish, shrimp, little pickles, and cold salads of gobo
root arranged on little shiso leaves. The box also contains fruit.
Every item is presented artfully in its own little compartment so
that the foods don’t get mixed up. It’s meant to be eaten on the go.

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Suggested Reading
Cwiertka, Modern Japanese Cuisine.
Ishige, History and Culture of Japanese Food.
Rath, Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan.

Culinary Activity
Tasting Experiment
A traditional Edo-era restaurant was designed to stimulate all of the senses,
evoke memories, and capture the essence of certain seasons. It essentially
treated the gastronomic experience like poetry. The next time you order
Japanese food to bring home—or, better yet, make yourself—think carefully
about the entire setting. That is, choose traditional music that fits the cuisine
(perhaps shakuhachi flute music or the shamisen). Put up images that are
evocative, and carefully arrange plants or fragrant flowers. Use tableware
that will demand careful consideration, such as bowls you can sip from and
Japanese chopsticks. If you have reed mats, eat sitting on the floor with the
food on a low table. Think about how the setting changed your awareness
of the food. Did you eat more slowly? Did you taste flavors and notice
textures that normally would have been lost? Consider what would happen
gastronomically if we paid this much attention to the setting in all of our
meals. Would we become more mindful of food in general?

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Lecture 25: Colonial Cookery in North America Colonial Cookery in North America

Lecture 25

People often tend to think of colonial America as relatively homogenous,
or they think that all the English settlers were basically the same
culturally, ethnically, and socially. However, apart from the major
economic differences between the North and South, practically every colony
was founded for different reasons, and different kinds of people settled them.
Each group, in one way or another, influenced American eating habits down
the road. In this lecture, you will learn how the 13 original colonies that were
established on the east coast of North America in the 18th century developed,
interacted, and invented their own unique culinary traditions.

Virginia
 After several failed attempts, the first colony to succeed in North
America was founded in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. The settlers
of Virginia were by and large wealthy gentry and lesser nobility who
intended to live as they had in England—if not better. They tried to
eat the same way, and they printed the exact same cookbooks that
were being printed in England, those that were written for landed
gentry women managing country estates.

 At the social level, Virginia is the place that most closely replicates
the English country aristocracy and its way of life, but there are
several important differences. Instead of living off the proceeds of
renting tenants, the lord of the manor (in everything but title) lived
off the labor of slaves. These were mostly plantations producing
major crops or textile plants for export. The African slaves brought
in and sold to these plantation owners also brought their own food
traditions, including okra, black-eyed peas, and also certain African
cooking techniques.

 The other ethnic group that influenced this colony was the Native
Americans. When the English arrived, they were settled and
practiced extensive agriculture, hunting, and fishing. The Native

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Americans introduced the English to corn, tomatoes, and pumpkins.
Unlike their English cousins, the Virginia settlers adopted these
foods immediately. In the long run, most of the natives disappeared,
were pushed out, or died of disease, but their crops were
enthusiastically adopted and became staples among the colonists.

 The other factor affecting Virginian cooking is that there was a
large number of poorer Englishmen—or sometimes Scots or Scots-
Irish—who came to Virginia either as indentured servants or to start
small subsistence farms or to work in cities. Necessity forced these
people to make use of anything they could grow, and it seems like
they were the first people to meld all of the disparate traditions,
which eventually become standard among all levels of society.

 The most prevalent meat eaten in the south is not beef or lamb
or any kind of expensive meat eaten fresh—it’s pork. This has
something to do with the abundance of corn used as feed for hogs.
Rice also becomes very important to the South in general because
it grows well in the marshy Carolinas. The English settlers had no
idea how to grow it, but the African slaves did (and had been doing
so for centuries).

 Virginia is part of a large empire that by the 18th century includes
footholds in India, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. The
English own Gibraltar and control much of the trade, so we find
lemons, anchovies, and currants in Virginia, pineapples and allspice
from Jamaica, sugarloaves from Barbados, pepper and cinnamon
from Ceylon, and ketchup from Indonesia.

 The combination of all these disparate ingredients with some
very sturdy English foods—including smoked hams and bacon,
chickens, beef and mutton—becomes matter of course, as it still is
in this country. There are also native ingredients, including oysters,
crabs, fish, deer, rabbit, beaver, ducks, geese, and turkeys. Virginian
cuisine becomes as complex and rich as English cuisine and uses
many of the same imports, but they put them together in very
unique ways, given the odd mix of peoples.

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Lecture 25: Colonial Cookery in North America  What these people drank is equally as interesting. They drank
wine if they could afford to import it. They drank port and sherry
especially after the English placed trade restrictions on French wine
and lowered taxes on Spanish and Portuguese wines. Beer was
made, but it spoiled very easily in the summer heat, and the yeast
died in the cold winters, so it wasn’t the most popular drink.

 Vast quantities of rum were imported from the Caribbean, and it
was put into all sorts of bizarre punch and toddy concoctions. There
was also a unique American invention, sour mash whiskey, which
is distilled from corn. Today, the best sour mash whiskey is called
bourbon from Kentucky. They also distilled whiskey from rye,
and as you move northward into the mid-Atlantic states, distilled
apple cider, or applejack, was the drink of choice—but it was also
distilled in the South. The reason hard alcohol caught on to such
an extent has to do with transport; it was easier to carry into the
hinterland than beer or wine and into stores much more easily.

New England
 Virginia kept in close economic and intellectual contact with
England, and the wealthiest plantation owners threw elaborate
feasts on the same scale as their European counterparts. Pretty much
the opposite is the case with New England. The people who came
were socially very different; they were to a large extent middle-
class mercantile-oriented people from East Anglia. They were also
highly literate and had a long tradition of religious nonconformity.
In other words, they didn’t suddenly become Puritans overnight.

 There were some noblemen among the New Englanders, but in
general, nearly everyone engaged in commerce, trade, farming,
or fishing to supply the market. What that means is the wealth is
distributed much more evenly among New Englanders. Their tastes
are comparatively simple and austere, given their Puritan heritage,
but they nonetheless grow very wealthy. New Englanders also tend
to be very reserved and take themselves very seriously.

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© iStockphoto/Thinkstock.

Clam chowder, a hearty soup, is a specialty of New England.

 New Englanders were extremely prolific—which is what happens
with abundant natural resources, hard-working people, and lots
of land—but it’s still not very crowded, so there aren’t major
epidemics like in Europe. Longer life spans and lower infant
mortality rates cause the population to boom. Most people lived on
small farms, so there were no real extremes of wealth.

 Their food was very simple and based for the most part on local
ingredients. There was a cornmeal bread called johnnycake or
hoecake. Codfish went into chowders, along with clams. Lobsters
were so plentiful that they were considered a poor man’s food.
Meats like beef or mutton tended to be boiled or made into a Yankee
pot roast. There was also substantial dairying, especially to make
butter and cheese. Baked pumpkins and apples and a whole slew
of vegetables could be stored in a root cellar. New Englanders were
also inordinately fond of pies.

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Lecture 25: Colonial Cookery in North America  New England simplicity changed into the mid-18th century for a few
reasons. First, the region became a major mercantile hub, a large
shipbuilding industry, and a large rum-distilling industry connected
them to the triangular trade route, linking them to Africa and the
Caribbean. Foods from all over the empire—including tea, coffee,
and spices—passed through New England ports. Some people
grew very wealthy, but their eating habits didn’t seem to change
that much, except that they became much more closely connected
culturally to England.

The Mid-Atlantic Region
 It’s difficult to generalize about the mid-Atlantic region because
there are several different colonies that were founded for different
reasons. The Dutch in New Amsterdam and up the Hudson
Valley essentially transplanted Dutch culture and large estates
(patroonships) into the New World. They set up what are basically
feudal estates and rented out the land in parcels to tenants—a
practice that is relatively rare in the Netherlands, where most
farmers own their own land that is intensively cultivated or used for
dairy. Perhaps the investors saw this as a way to attract settlers and
make a lot of money.

 The Dutch handed over New Netherlands to the English in 1667
after a mercantile war, but the Dutch settlers remained, even though
the colony became New York and East Jersey. Many Dutch cooking
traditions remained, including waffles and cookies.

 In the southern part of New Jersey—and, more importantly,
into Pennsylvania—there settled an entirely different group of
Englishmen: the Quakers, who are not only radical Protestants, but
also pacifists. These people were also religious exiles and were lead
by William Penn. Incidentally, they’re a lot like the Anabaptists,
who were invited to join them in the 18th century, so there’s this
massive influx of Mennonites and Amish from Germany.

 In terms of foodways, the Quakers don’t seem to be that different
from other English settlers—except that they often wouldn’t eat

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sugar because it was made by slaves, and they tended to avoid
spices because they felt it adulterated foods and was an unnecessary
ornament. They also wear plain black clothes and broad-brimmed
hats. They have very simple tastes.

 The German settlers, on the other hand, introduced things like
sauerkraut, dill pickles, and German sausages. They also introduced
pretzels, which are very different from English baked goods
because they’re boiled first and then baked. They also introduced
cast-iron stoves, which Ben Franklin adapted and improved, and
cast-iron pots with lids, which are called Dutch ovens.

 Pennsylvania also became cosmopolitan because they were one of
the few colonies to allow religious freedom, so Jews, free Africans,
and Swedes settled there. By the 18th century, it was also the
second largest English-speaking city in the world, so it wasn’t a
coincidence that it was chosen as the first capital.

Suggested Reading

Carney, Black Rice.

Eden, Early American Table.

Haber, Hardtack to Homefries.

Levenstein, Revolution at Table.

Oliver, Food in Colonial and Federal America.

Randolf, Virginia Housewife.

Simmons, American Cookery.

Culinary Activity

Although English cookbooks had been printed in the colonies in the 18th
century, the first truly American cookbook, using native ingredients, was
Amelia Simmons’s American Cookery, published in Hartford in 1796. She
offers three different versions of the following recipe, which by this time

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Lecture 25: Colonial Cookery in North America was very popular in New England but today is a real rarity. It is worth
reviving, and each version is quite different. The last technique is by far
the best and offers a simple but deep and utterly delicious flavor. As she
suggests, any kind of vessel will work, as long as it is sealed tight and can be
boiled. Boiling puddings in a buttered cloth tied tightly with string were also
common, but they are now completely extinct in the United States. It was the
original way of making “peas porridge” as well. Do account for expansion of
the cornmeal, whatever vessel you use.
A Nice Indian Pudding
No. 1. 3 pints scalded milk, 7 spoons fine Indian meal, stir well together
while hot, let stand till cooled; add 7 eggs, half pound of raisins, 4 ounces
butter, spice and sugar, bake one and half hour.
No. 2. 3 pints scalded milk to one pint meal salted cook, add 2 eggs, 4
ounces butter, sugar or molasses and spice q. s. it will require two and half
hours baking.
No. 3. Salt a pint meal, wet with one quart milk, sweeten and put into a
strong cloth, brass or bell metal vessel, stone or earthen pot, secure from wet
and boil 12 hours.

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Eating in the Early Industrial Revolution

Lecture 26

This lecture begins by focusing on Britain in the late 18th and early 19th
centuries and a series of events that marks what most food historians
contend is the second major revolution in human eating habits in
the history of our species. The first occurred about 10,000 years ago with
the Neolithic Revolution, a time when humans went from being hunters
and gatherers to farmers. The second revolution involves a switch from the
vast majority of people growing food for a living to most people working
in factories and having food provided by a small number of industrially
organized and financed food producers.

The Rise of Food Manufacturing
 In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, food production becomes a
business separate from most people’s daily lives. This is a process
that takes a good century to develop and takes even longer to
spread around the world, but it begins in Great Britain with two
interconnected world-changing events: a second agricultural
revolution and the Industrial Revolution.

 In the midst of these events was an individual named Adam Smith—
probably among the most influential thinkers of all time—who
heralded the modern era in many ways. Smith’s Wealth of Nations,
published in 1776, predicted the way the economy would work in
the age of capitalism. He predicted a new form of organization for
labor. From day to day, the average worker or farmer constantly
switches jobs, which means that he or she never really gets efficient
at any of them.

 Smith suggested that if each stage of a process could be handled
by separate people that specialized in their particular task, then
they could be more efficient and make more products. He called it
division of labor, and the key to it is mass manufacture rather than
small-scale cottage crafts.

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Lecture 26: Eating in the Early Industrial Revolution  Smith also wondered what would happen if all the ways governments
control the economy—by import duties, monopolies, fixing prices
and wages, and all the things mercantilist theorists said should be
done—were taken away. With a total laissez-faire economy, he
predicted that everyone would get wealthier and that the wealth of
the nation as a whole would be greater because businesses would be
freely competing, and only the best would survive.

 Why Smith’s predictions could even be conceivable has to do with
changes in the organization of agriculture first. The techniques
were actually not entirely new, but the British applied them on a
massive scale—so great that it actually changes the shape of their
society entirely.

 The new capitalist farmer did a few important things. New three-
field crop rotation systems were introduced, which meant that land
never had to stay fallow. New crops were put in one cycle—usually
clover or alfalfa, which could be eaten by cattle—if the farmer had
a large herd.

 There was also a massive effort made at selective breeding.
Improving plant varieties causes them to yield more grains per
plant, and this is partly possible with more manure from bigger
herds as well as improved cattle breeding. They don’t have genetics
yet, but choosing animals and plants with certain characteristics to
breed over several generations makes them little food factories.

 There are also the first agricultural machines. The most famous of
them is Jethro Tull’s seed drill, which plants neat, even rows rather
than broadcast seeds. These inventions result in much more food
at cheaper prices. Your average small farmer has disappeared in
favor of large capital-intensive farms. As a result, Britain is the first
place to completely eradicate subsistence crises, famines, and even
minor setbacks in food production—leading to a major population
explosion that doesn’t begin to halt until the late 20th century.

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 Britain has an excess of labor, which drives the cost of labor
way down, leading to lots of people looking for jobs and having
to settle for dirt wages. This teeming mass of cheap labor means
that manufacturing—which was formerly done on a small scale,
producing mostly luxury goods—begins to produce cheaper goods
on a much larger scale that are marketed to anyone who can afford
them. The general trend from the early 19th century to the present
is mass production, standardization, and craftsmen and farmers
changing into wage-paid workers.

 The most important early new source of energy is James Watt’s
steam engine. This new technology is not only important in stepping
up production and making factories themselves possible, but also
the existence of steamships and railroads means that goods can be
moved faster, farther, and cheaper to more customers.

Society and the Industrial Revolution
 Society changed in a major way as a result of the Industrial
Revolution. Workers no longer made their own food and household
items for their own consumption, and they didn’t even buy them
from the local craftsman anymore. In the industrial age, the
manufacturer basically has to guess what the consumer wants or
spend a fortune convincing the consumer that he or she wants it,
even though it may not be in the consumer’s best interest to buy it.

 Other negative effects of the Industrial Revolution include the iron
smelting and slag heaps that are waste products and the pollution
from burning coal. In fact, many environmental historians contend
that since the 18th century, we have entered into a new geological
epoch called the Anthropocene, in which humans have an
unavoidably large effect on the environment.

 The industrial revolution produced enormous amounts of wealth
for the privileged bourgeoisie, but the workers never felt like the
product was theirs or that they had a stake in it or pride that it was
being used by someone they knew. The industrial process takes all
of the pride and creativity out of making things, and that capacity

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to enjoy working and become satisfied with our accomplishments is
uniquely human.
The Importance of Bread and Potatoes
 Bread was a gritty affair made with stone-ground flour. Yeasts were
unpredictable and often sour, and wood-burning ovens made odd,
misshapen loaves sometimes with crusty, dark exteriors. Bread
went stale after a day or two. Maybe most importantly, it differed
from place to place and even from one baker to another.
 In the industrial era, a new flour-milling technique was developed
that could squash the grains under intense pressure between two
metal rollers. The flour got heated up a bit, and some nutrients were
lost, but it became cheaper.
 In most people’s minds, whiter meant better, and it had always been
only the wealthy who could afford pure white bread. The incentive
to produce more bread quicker meant that manufacturers had great

Bread is one of the most basic foods in many different cultures.

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Lecture 26: Eating in the Early Industrial Revolution
© iStockphoto/Thinkstock.

incentive to use the flour quickly rather than let it mature, which
gives it better flavor and lift in baking.

 Bread manufacturers were in a hurry, so they began to search for
artificial ways to make bread lighter and fluffier with chemicals.
A variety of them were used, but what they eventually settled on
was bleaching the flour with bromates, which makes it whiter (and
destroys vitamin E), and conditioners so it will stay bouncier and
last on the shelf longer. In the 20th century, white breads have to
have vitamins and minerals added back in—in an attempt to make
up for what’s been removed.

 Nevertheless, the industrialization of bread making continued
apace, along with new chemical leavening agents. The very first
United States patent went to Samuel Hopkins in 1790 for potash,
which is used as a fertilizer and chemical leavener in quick breads
(like biscuits) and is an ancestor of baking powder.

 In 1835, the English also began selling chemicals for use in baking.
The result was that home baking tended to concentrate more on
quick muffins, scones, and pancakes. This in itself is not such a bad
thing, but the chemicals might be, and it’s bad if you end up living
on such things.

 The diet of the average British family dramatically declined in terms
of overall calories, percentage of protein, and most dramatically,
reduction of vitamins due to lack of fresh vegetables. Living on
bread, potatoes, scraps of bacon, and sweetened tea just doesn’t offer
a decent diet. The result was severe outbreaks of scurvy, a vitamin C
deficiency, and widespread rickets, which is a vitamin D deficiency.

 In the 1830s, potatoes were considerably cheaper than bread, so they
increasingly became the more economical option, with any leftover
money spent on tea and sugar. Potatoes are good for you, except
with the increased demand and planting nothing but potatoes—
especially in places like Ireland—disaster was bound to strike, and
it did, beginning in 1845 and lasting in Ireland until 1852.

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Lecture 26: Eating in the Early Industrial Revolution  Absolute disaster and deadly famine struck when the potato blight
hit. About one million Irish died, and about the same number
emigrated to America and England. The British government at
first tried to help them with shipment of cornmeal, but a change in
government a year later that brought in politicians who favored free
trade thought it would hurt growers if food was just sent to people
for nothing. The British government pretty much let the Irish perish
as a necessary casualty of the market. Conversely, food exports
from Ireland did not stop, even at the height of the famine.

 The only people who apparently wanted to help were Quakers
and relief societies, who cared more about human beings than the
market. There was only so much they could do, but they did force
on the government what was called the Soup Kitchen Act in 1847
that provided some food in cities. However, in the end, about one-
fifth of the population was gone. This is a great example of how
a single food can completely change the course of history. Ireland
would be a different place thereafter.

Suggested Reading

Atkins, Food and the City in Europe Since 1800.

Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management.

Burnett, Plenty and Want.

Clarkson, Feast and Famine.

Drummond, Englishman’s Food.

Fisher, American Cookbook.

Floyd, Recipe Reader.

Francatelli, Plain Cookery.

Gentilcore, Pomodoro.

Griffith, Born Again Bodies.

Harrison, Drink and the Victorians.

190

Humble, Culinary Pleasures.

Reader, Potato.

Salaman, History and Social Influence of the Potato.

Smith, Eating History.

Soyer, A Shilling Cookery.

Zuckerman, Potato.

Culinary Activity

Simple Industrial-Age Dinner
Contrary to the image we have of the wealthy in the mid-19th century being
completely uncaring toward the poor, starving working classes, a number
of people took up charitable causes, including Alexis Soyer and a chef who
worked for Queen Victoria named Charles Elmé Francatelli, whose A Plain
Cookery Book for the Working Classes was designed to offer cheap and
nutritious meals. Equally interesting is his assumption that this generation of
working women had no idea how to cook very basic food. Presumably working
in factories since a young age, they never had the opportunity to learn basic
skills. This is a very typical British dish and a technique very different from
that common in the United States when dealing with bacon. For this recipe,
you should use a whole slab of cured, smoked pork belly, not sliced American
bacon or cut English rashers. It is, incidentally, as Francatelli claims, excellent.

Boiled Bacon and Cabbages
Put a piece of bacon in a pot capable of containing two gallons; let it boil
up, and skim it well; then put in some well-washed split cabbages, a few
carrots and parsnips also split, and a few peppercorns, and when the whole
has boiled gently for about an hour and a-half, throw in a dozen peeled
potatoes, and by the time that these are done, the dinner will be ready. And
this is the way in which to make the most of this excellent and economical
dinner. First, take up the bacon, and having placed it on its dish, garnish
it round with the cabbages, carrots, parsnips, and potatoes, and then add
some pieces of crust, or thin slices of bread, to the liquor in which the bacon-
dinner has been cooked, and this will furnish you with a good wholesome
soup with which to satisfy the first peremptory call of your healthy appetites.

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Lecture 27: Romantics, Vegetarians, Utopians Romantics, Vegetarians, Utopians

Lecture 27

Not everyone was happy with the new situation of industrialized
food production, and in this lecture, you will learn about the first
counterculture food movements and the reaction that some people—
including Romantics, vegetarians, health gurus, and utopians—had against
progress. These people are vaguely recognized as the ancestors of the modern
health-food movement. They represent a real 19th-century counterculture
food movement, and like the modern movement, they are also subsumed by
the food industry. In other words, they sell out and go mainstream.

Counterculture Food Movements
 There are a number of preconditions to the first counterculture
food movements. One important factor is the almost complete
breakdown of the basic humoral principles of nutrition in the 18th
century. It began to be replaced or amended during the scientific
revolution, when new chemical ways of thinking about digestion
and new mechanical investigations in physiology made the whole
Galenic system obsolete.

 Without a uniform dietary theory that all physicians subscribe to,
there were dozens of different competing theories floating around
in the 18th century, each with their own bizarre conceptions of what
people need to eat to stay healthy. Some said eat meat and drink
wine; others said eat vegetables and avoid wine.

 In the midst of this wild speculation, there appear the first
scientifically defended vegetarian diets. With this wild speculation
in dietetics, and without any one solid set of empirical facts that
everyone could agree on, there was rampant quackery. Almost
anything that sounded remotely scientific could pass. Directly
connected to this are diets that were both scientific and religious.

192